Ever been curious about what it takes to go from the high school fishing scene to making the college roster? Well, you're about to find out! We share our insights on high school fishing recruitment and college fishing teams, with stories and advice drawn from our own journey and experiences at the Bassmaster High School Combine. Learn how to reach out to coaches, why good grades are essential, and why your passion for fishing can wrangle you the right spot on a college team.
We also dive into the details about collegiate bass fishing teams, breaking down what you can expect when you join one. From the typical team size, to how you pair up with a freshman partner, we've got you covered. Plus, we'll be shedding light on what expenses are covered by the school and how professors treat the fishing team like any other sport, giving you the flexibility you need to reel in those big wins at tournaments. Remember, communication is key, especially with your professors, to stay on top of academics.
Finally, we've got some great advice on how to navigate the recruitment process. We talk about the importance of making college visits, building relationships with sponsors, and why striving to improve your angling skills could be your best bait yet.
Ever been curious about what it takes to go from the high school fishing scene to making the college roster? Well, you're about to find out! We share our insights on high school fishing recruitment and college fishing teams, with stories and advice drawn from our own journey and experiences at the Bassmaster High School Combine. Learn how to reach out to coaches, why good grades are essential, and why your passion for fishing can wrangle you the right spot on a college team.
We also dive into the details about collegiate bass fishing teams, breaking down what you can expect when you join one. From the typical team size, to how you pair up with a freshman partner, we've got you covered. Plus, we'll be shedding light on what expenses are covered by the school and how professors treat the fishing team like any other sport, giving you the flexibility you need to reel in those big wins at tournaments. Remember, communication is key, especially with your professors, to stay on top of academics.
Finally, we've got some great advice on how to navigate the recruitment process. We talk about the importance of making college visits, building relationships with sponsors, and why striving to improve your angling skills could be your best bait yet.
Welcome back to the Breeding Late Night Talk Show, episode two. I'm Haley and this is Cole.
Speaker 2:Today we wanted to kind of dive into our experience of the Bassmaster High School Combine and kind of talk about, like, um, high school and how to get to college, fishing and what that process is like, because there's not really a lot of information on it. So we want to talk about our experience of the Combine, what we saw that was good, that the high school English did, what wasn't that great, what stood out to us, and like we've both been in college, been recruited and through that process and now I'm the assistant coach at Jury, so like we have an idea of kind of what it takes to get there now at this point.
Speaker 1:So explain to them what the Combine is.
Speaker 2:Okay, so two weeks ago we went to the, the Combine and basically Bassmaster held this at Wheeler Lake, alabama, and it was they rented out like an event center and what we did, oh, whoa come here?
Speaker 1:Anyway, they went rented out this it's like a very large pavilion indoor, outdoor space, and there were, what do you think, 20?. So there was like 25 colleges there and each college had a table set up kind of like a booth, and then throughout the pavilion there were tables where parents and their children could sit.
Speaker 2:High school kids. Sorry high school kids, childs. But anyway, basically there's 25 universities here and they're all like organizations within the school. They're not just club teams, they actually have coaches and pretty much everybody has a budget for their team, and so basically it's just an event that high school anglers can meet colleges and build a connection, build a relationship, and there was like they had like some skill events that were cast in competitions basically, which really doesn't mean a lot, but it was just something to do basically.
Speaker 1:It was something to give the anglers to do and showcase their skills and meet other guys that were in the same sport, but it didn't really show us anything that they could or couldn't do for the sport itself.
Speaker 2:The most important thing that we kind of had was there are scheduled times where the anglers and their parents could come and talk to us each school and, like they could ask questions about us. We could ask questions about them and it was just a good time to connect and, you know, we kind of got like a review sheet of the anglers and where they're from and what their skills are and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we got to talk to each angler and whoever was with them so usually their parents or a parent for about 15 minutes. How many people do you think we talked to?
Speaker 2:How many groups Ten different meetings probably.
Speaker 1:I think it was more than that. Maybe, but we met with a lot of people. It was about four hours long with four people per hour. So that's yeah, let's just say we met with about 15 families.
Speaker 2:So anyway, kind of like leading up to this, we want to talk about, obviously, what was good there, but also how do you like you don't have to go to this event by any means, like meet coaches or go to college to fish. This is just kind of a supplement event that Bassmaster kind of puts on, and so we want to talk about, like, when do you start?
Speaker 1:you know, like, where do you even start when you're looking at schools, and how to contact coaches, pointers for going through recruitment, and even though I didn't go through Bassfishing recruitment, I was recruited myself for running, so maybe I can be of some help. Yeah, so.
Speaker 2:I didn't start like looking at college fishing like I knew it was there but I didn't seriously start looking into it like my senior year of high school and luckily I reached out to jury and Rick M and the coach like got back to me quick. I loved Rick, I loved the school and it was an easy decision for me. I made it quick. But that's not the case Now. It's a lot harder because there's a lot more schools that are involved.
Speaker 2:Fishing has completely changed in the past five years. College fishing whites it's really grown. The teams have grown, so there's like a lot of good options to go for to school. And so like if I was starting, if I was in high school right now and I knew what I knew, like I would say sophomore year, I would start like reaching out to coaches and maybe like the schools that I'm interested and not necessarily to say hey, I'm this big shop coming up, but like get to know the school. The important thing is that you find the right fit for you and a school that's going to fit you well. And like if you, if you're a homebody and you you're going to move eight hours away, like that's probably not a good move. And so like I would get to know the schools and just start looking like sophomore year.
Speaker 2:That's not that important, I would say junior year is like the time to really.
Speaker 1:Junior year is the best time, but if you're a senior right now it's not too late. So don't think based on it's never too late.
Speaker 2:I mean, even if you just graduate and you're looking for, like fall, it's really not too late. But like it gives you an idea of this is exactly where I want to go. Like you get to see all the schools, you have more time to go tour the schools and it just makes you feel better about your decision. It's not like you can't get into a school.
Speaker 1:It also gives you better preparation for, let's say, grades or ACT or SAT testing. So you know exactly what you need to get into that school or to get a certain scholarship to go to that school, or anything of the sort. So it just it helps out the earlier you can start.
Speaker 2:So when we're?
Speaker 1:leaving the combine in Alabama for recruiting. We made a list in the car of things that stood out to us, good and bad, a lot bad just because it was. It just stood out a little bit more.
Speaker 2:It sticks more, it sticks a little bit more.
Speaker 1:So we have that list of us today and I think, from my memory, the first thing. Well, let me backtrack just a little bit. When we got to the combine, all the coaches received a pamphlet and in that pamphlet was a picture. Like each angler had a profile, so they had a picture. It was their name, their year in school, where they go to school where they live.
Speaker 1:They said what they think their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, what their preferred techniques are Social media, and so the first thing that we were going to talk about is social media right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like. One thing that we noticed is like some kids even had like their Instagram names on the back of their jersey. First of all, I wouldn't recommend that, unless it's just your name. Like my social media says cold breeding fishing.
Speaker 1:Well, I will say your Instagram handle cannot be I love soccer 92. It needs to be your name and if you're going into the fishing industry field, whatever you want to call it, the typical thing that these guys do is their first and last name, and then fishing. Whether the thing is is like if it's, if it says Nathan, one four, one four like we're never going to find you. No one knows who that is. It's just Nathan with some numbers that's first of all.
Speaker 2:It's not very professional and like if I know you, how am I going to find you like I want, if I'm looking you up, like if I see that while I'm looking through social media, that's, that's not what. I'm just going to stop on. So like make sure it's like a good, solid name and if it can't be Like just your name because it's already taken like, you can add an underscore or like a period somewhere or just.
Speaker 1:To where it reads well, so have it read on top of that. So it's already obvious that coaches and other people are looking at your socials, so make sure you're not posting anything inappropriate and make your, make your social media public.
Speaker 1:Don't make it private to where no one can see because if you're Private, then a lot of coaches are immediately like well, I can't find anything about out about them. And if you don't go the extra mile to really get to know those coaches, they're going to be a little bit hesitant about you joining the team.
Speaker 2:She used to ate. I can smell it Wet mouth too, oh no.
Speaker 1:So that's on social media.
Speaker 2:So Something else is like these profiles. That's our first impression of each angler. We don't get to talk to them beforehand, like I'm reading through these profiles.
Speaker 1:Let's start at the top.
Speaker 1:Yeah look through the. So the first thing that was on the profile was a picture at the very top, and Something that came out to me was when I was going through it is there were certain people anglers on there when it was a selfie of them in their car or you know something really random. So if you are making yourself a recruiting profile, make it all about that sport, you know, like have your jersey on, be holding a bass, you know, or at least have your jersey on and at least have the picture be taken outside. You know. Make your mom take it. You know, professional photo Looking. You know. Don't put some crazy filter on it.
Speaker 2:It's just a picture to weigh in. Just make it to where it's like, like you said, revolving around the sport.
Speaker 1:Yeah, revolving around the sport. Don't, like you know, duck face in the car. You know, like that's not this one, a good option For coaches to look at it.
Speaker 2:It stands out in the wrong way.
Speaker 1:It stands out in the wrong way.
Speaker 2:Not saying that you know you can't be a good fisherman or whatever, but just towards with a little bit more attractive in your profile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And so that's just another way for you to you know Be like everyone else, like you. Don't need to stand out in that way, you know so.
Speaker 2:And then, and then something else. It was like on that page that, um, I looked at first or like caught my eyes like your strengths and weaknesses that you think you are you have as a fisherman. And I'll just say this I don't mean to call anybody out, but there was like three people on in this, uh, a Profilers pamphlet. Yeah, they said that they didn't have any weaknesses.
Speaker 1:Don't say that, because if you don't have any tournament wins on your profile and you say you have no weaknesses, it doesn't even matter if you have 20 tournament wins. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Kevin Van Damme will tell you that he has weaknesses like you. Don't say that you don't have weaknesses, especially as a high schooler like honestly, that was like okay. Well, we're not gonna recruit this kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was an immediate Um and there was a couple of them that like their profiles were just kind of incomplete and it was like that they fill this out as a joke. One kid put their weakness was snagging Um. Another kid put bobber fishing. You know, like, if you really want to go to college which I would assume I would assume that you want to be a good fisherman, you want to maybe fish professionally, maybe work in the fishing industry, and at the least you want to do the best that you can. Don't, don't put that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yes. So, and you know yourself. Just be honest, because a coach is gonna want to make you better. So if you do have a very specific weakness, that coach is gonna do their best to make sure you can get better at it too. So be honest.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, something we need to talk about as well that goes into recruitment is grades In school. I mean you're saying that like, yeah, obviously Well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I would say like, if there's one thing that that would like if I did the recruiting I'm just the assistant coach, I don't necessarily do the recruiting Rick does, but if I did recruiting, that's one of the first things that matters the most is, like your grades. Like can you stay on my team if I get you on my team in college, are you going to be able to make grades and stay on the team and be able to fish? Like it would make me mad to get someone on the team and then they Flunk out or their grades are too low to where they can't even fish the next semester. I'm just wasting money on you at that point, which that's the same in any sport. But like that's An important thing.
Speaker 2:It seems like some kids are like, oh, I don't really matter, I'm just gonna, I just want to fish. You know my grades, all you know. It doesn't matter, it matters a whole lot. And Like, if you want any chance to be able to fish professionally, like you have to fish in college and get that level and and so the there's two ways to fish professionally. That's either fish as a co-angler in tournaments, which costs money, or go fish college and get the experience that way, which also costs money, but you get to travel for free with a lot of these schools, and so, yeah, grades are a big thing, like that's one of the first things that we looked at, because it was like.
Speaker 2:They would give us resumes that would have information and honestly, that's.
Speaker 1:That's one of the only thing that I would look at, and like we would.
Speaker 2:We would try to find that together, like when they give it to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because no coach is going to spend time Recruiting you if you're only going to be able to stay at the university for a semester. And it's happened before and obviously happens a lot. Yeah, I mean, nobody wants that, we know that, but you have to really be committed to keeping those high grades because the university won't let you, won't let you go tournaments.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I mean it's just it's treated like any other sport. You have to have a certain grade point average in order to play, play, but yeah, so while we were at the combine, I mean I feel like we were repeating ourselves a lot because we got asked the same questions over and over again from each group and so I wrote down our coal, wrote down some of those questions and we just kind of like wanted to talk to you guys about that, I mean just jury specifically, but maybe that can help some of you guys answer any questions you might have too, because they see the all pretty similar, yeah, and about and about jury specifically.
Speaker 2:Um, but like. So these kids would come and talk to us and, um, there's something else that that like really mattered to us right behind grades was do you have the passion for fishing and you care about coming to fish on the team? Like there'd be some people we talked to that they would just sit there and their parents would ask some questions and I would be like you know this kid doesn't really care about?
Speaker 2:maybe about the school he didn't cared fishing college. He doesn't really care that much about fishing. Like I want to get someone on the team that's passionate, that's gonna like get better. When they're in school they don't really care and they're not getting better again, kind of a waste of scholarship almost. And so that's something big. Like whenever You're talking to a college coach, show your interest. Like don't just let your parents do the talking.
Speaker 1:Like show the one going to the school. You are right and obviously your parents care.
Speaker 2:They want to make sure you're making the right choice. Yeah, they're excited for you but, like you, have to show interest as well. Yeah, not just you know, only you do the talking.
Speaker 1:but that's, that's something just noticeable, I would say as an adult now Talking to someone younger another thing I will say was one of the very first things that like really caught me off guard Is every time that we, you know, introduced ourselves to an angler, you, you know, you shake someone's hand, shake their hand. I had these guys come up to me and like no, don't do that, that's terrible. That is the worst first impression you can ever make. You know, like, here's a trick, make sure your thumbs Whatever that's called they lock, they're locked, they're in there, and then you just like really shake that hand.
Speaker 1:Okay, don't, don't do this. Okay, that sucks to me. To me that almost Also seems like your.
Speaker 2:Your interest, no, but like your interest, like you, care are you interested?
Speaker 1:No, not really. Then they don't you know. Be professional, this is professional, so anyway. Now we're gonna go through like some of the most, the most popular questions that we got asked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I'll pretend I'm the angler.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, what you got into to, but I can maybe help answer but you know first question, so first question is how many kids are on the jury team? Usually like so on jury on the jury team.
Speaker 2:There's about 25 and we're gonna try to keep it in that range. Like too many, some schools have 60, a hundred anglers, and that's too many. Like your budget doesn't allow for that, and so At jury we try to keep it 25, definitely not over 30, because then there's too many people to for us to be able to afford to send people to tournaments. So I would say the average college team has 10 to 15, 10 to 20, yeah, yeah. So next question is how are partners chosen?
Speaker 1:This was like the top question. Yeah, which understandable. I mean you don't want to fish with just random people. Yeah, out of some of the Five years that I've been able to see, this.
Speaker 2:Now, everyone wants to know how it's, how it's chosen. You know to be partners with somebody, but typically 90% of the time what happens is the freshman. They live together, they hang out, they get, they become friends before the first tournament, and so they already decide who they want to fish with. Like they become buddies and they're like, hey, we should fish together.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, and so that's not always the case but, like that happens a lot, and so, like a jury, you know, rick's is just like yeah, sure you'd like fish together, and then we'll reevaluate after the tournament, and so really it's just kind of a constantly changing thing. After that, like, hey, we fish together. Really well, we'd like to stay together, no problem, hey, we didn't, you know, fish that great together. Maybe we should try switching. And we'll switch it around and typically, like, well, we can't fish together. Typically, like what we try to do is match Fishermen that have similar styles because we don't want to have a chow fisherman and a deep fisherman together in the boat and then argue all day Like we want two people that have the same ideas so that they get along and try to make decisions. And you know, like fish together.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, yeah. So another question that got asked was does jury provide storage units? No, jury does not.
Speaker 2:But in Springfield it's 175,000 people. There's storage units everywhere, nice ones.
Speaker 1:I really like the one that Cole's boat is at these. I've kept mine in the same one for the past five years.
Speaker 2:Just because it's gated, it's nice. Some schools, some schools like have room to put storage facilities on campus but like juries in the middle of Springfield and there's no room for any that kind of stuff. So yeah, yeah, our expenses paid so Whenever jury sends teams to a tournament, 100% of expenses are paid boat gas, truck gas, food, hotel entry fees, lodging, fishing license, all that kind of stuff. But not everyone goes to every tournament Because first of all, like, we have to mix and match, because you?
Speaker 2:can't a single person can't go to every single tournament that there is throughout the year. You can't miss that much class like you might have family stuff going on. You have a test you can't miss, so it kind of changes and so what we typically do is send anywhere from like four to six boats To the big tournaments and then the closer tournaments will actually send everybody Usually and then expenses covered for most of that. So I know a lot of schools they might do you know you can go if you want and then we'll reimburse the you know top two or four anglers or yeah, there's just different ways that teams do it. But like, if we send you, you know we want to have all your expenses paid and then if you want to go?
Speaker 2:and pay your way. Coach Rick will usually like pitch in, like the hotel or gas or food or you know one of those things. Rick fundraises a lot of money. It's not throughout the year, so I mean he really does Make it, to where jury can go to all these tournaments. I mean, if it wasn't for him.
Speaker 1:We wouldn't have enough money to do it. Yeah, it's expensive to send, you know, six or seven college boats to a tournament now Rick's pretty awesome, so I don't think you can get any better than that, honestly. So we talked about academics. Do professors work with anglers? So jury.
Speaker 2:The professors and the university treat the fishing team like any other sport, so you get excused absences, the professors will work with you. I think we get like per semester, we get 10 missed class days per class, which is quite a bit, and so they do work with us like other sports. But as a college student, you have to work with your professor. They're not gonna like chase you around and try to give you the stuff that you missed out on, like you have to actively, like, before you leave, say tell your teacher or professor hey, I'm gonna be gone, what do I need to do, what am I gonna miss? And then when you get back, like you know, stay in touch with them and it'll be fine, like I didn't have a problem, kept fine grades. But you just have to, you know, keep up with your professor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're probably gonna be doing work while you're traveling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not always crazy. Sometimes they'll move back due dates for you and stuff like that, but you definitely have to stay on it, yeah and I will say it depends by major.
Speaker 1:So I would say not to do architecture at Jury and bass fishing no don't work. Don't do that. But most anglers at Jury were in the marketing program and I would say that was pretty successful, yeah.
Speaker 2:business and journal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And we got asked questions about certain degrees at Jury that are good and everything, and I will say our accounting program is pretty stellar. Highest paid major out of Jury accounting Highest paid major out of Jury is accounting, and so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:But I would say like, if you want to pick a major to keep yourself in the fishing industry or fish professionally like and this could be like working at any fishing company that's what a lot of people want to do. But marketing management degrees typically also have a lot of the same classes as marketing or some sort of communications or media degree. They kind of like have a lot of the same skills where you're producing certain things and listening to a client and you're still marketing is what that is. And so, yeah, a lot of business degrees work out well, but marketing is probably the number one for fishing?
Speaker 1:I would definitely say that, yeah, for sure. And then, as a college, what should anglers look for? I'm pretty sure we nailed all that.
Speaker 2:Like what do we look for as coaches?
Speaker 1:Oh, that's what that question was.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean, yeah, we talked about that like grades, passion for the sport.
Speaker 1:Like you don't have to be the best tournament angler in high school.
Speaker 2:I was not the best tournament angler in high school, but I had the passion, but he's a national champion in college.
Speaker 2:But like I had the passion for it and really wanted to do well, so I studied for tournaments, I did everything that I could and I got better over time. Like going to these college tournaments you get to learn so much. So like learning is a super huge thing. I mean most like if you look at the college bracket, because that actually just ended, but most of the guys that win that are fifth year seniors. You know like they have that extra experience to get to that point.
Speaker 2:And so like every single year, I mean even from my last year of college to now, because I just graduated last year. It's crazy how much you can grow every single year.
Speaker 1:So like learning and being passionate is what I would want to look for in a high school angler for sure, yeah, and I mean, you know, I don't know a whole lot about bass fishing compared to my partner here, but I can. I've seen the improvement that he's made over the years. Like it's crazy. I mean, the first thing I think about is Florida and how much you've improved in Florida over the years compared to your freshman year of college to now. Like it's insane. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's hard the state of Florida used to be your weakness, and now I think you're fine.
Speaker 2:For a tournament.
Speaker 1:We'll see how it continues in the future.
Speaker 1:I will say the next step in anything really to show coaches that you're being serious is to do a college visit, and what I would do is schedule it through the university and then let that coach know that you're coming and they will plan to meet with you. That's usually what happens at jury. What they'll do is they'll have a student take you around campus, give you an official tour of campus and then Rick will have a personal meeting with you, or Cole even, and talk to you more about bass fishing and journal. But showing the coach that you're willing to come to the university and meet them in person and tour the school and apply to the school, those are all really, really important yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean like if you're serious about any school anywhere, that's kind of like a big thing to do is just go see it. And I would say most of these college coaches aren't going to chase you down necessarily to get you to come on a visit or something. They want to see the passion that you have and obviously if you're a good angler, people are going to show interest in you. But a lot of high school anglers don't have a ton to show for necessarily, or maybe even there's just not a lot of tournaments in your state or around you. So you have to get yourself in front of them and let them see who you are really. So going to the school is big for that and just meeting with coaches.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of like what I would do. I mean, and a lot of the time, if you go to a school's website, you can find the college coaches email and phone number. So, like jury, they have a sports page and then they have a non-NCA sports category and there's a bass fishing page in there where you can see our coach Rick. You can see his email phone number. Get ahold of him. He'd love to talk to anybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure that a lot of these schools are like that. So first of all, see the schools that you're interested in, get in contact with the coaches and, like I said, see if it's a good fit for you and then that's basically what I would do, like going into, looking to get into college, and I think a lot of kids probably, I would say, aren't looking at the right things or like high school kids trying to get sponsorships. You don't need that. Trying to get boat wraps. Don't get one of those.
Speaker 2:The important thing is that you're getting better and that you're fishing. Go fishing as much as possible. That's probably number one thing and I know a lot of people have heard that. You guys know that because pros say it all the time Go get experience on the water and become a better angler, because that's really what's going to vault you in college fishing. It's not going to be. I got a sponsor for $500. Now what you buy more bass with it, like seriously, get to the point where you can go compete in BFLs and Toyota series events. You need that two or three years experience in high school. Some high school anglers are phenomenal. They can go compete in that stuff right now, but most people are not at that level.
Speaker 2:I was not at that level until my junior year really, and at that point sure find you some sponsors to pay for a Toyota series or BFLs. So like spend that effort on becoming a better angler, like learning, networking with other anglers and In like networking with with companies. Like I wouldn't seek a sponsorship, and the thing that I've learned about sponsorships in the past couple years is it's about building relationships and it takes time. It takes a lot of time, like you don't just walk up to someone and say, hey, I would like a sponsorship. They're gonna be like who are you?
Speaker 1:college gives you that time. That's where you're gonna meet a crap ton of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean one of the things I wish I would have done more is whenever I was like a freshman sophomore is just meet as many people as you can while you're at these tournaments. Like you see someone from Abu Garcia, you see someone from Daiwa or Minn Kota or it doesn't matter who it is people go talk to him. Yeah, Rappala.
Speaker 1:I mean, hey, my name is Haley. You know, it's all you say.
Speaker 2:They're gonna tell you about them, you know yeah just yeah, walk up to him introduce yourself, say you know, I love your, your company.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I would. I would love if I'd opportunity in the future To work with you guys and they would say, oh yeah, that'd be awesome. And then enough. Five or six tournaments later you see him again.
Speaker 2:So you have the same conversation, yeah, and they'll remember you and then, like two or three years later, when you're a junior or senior in college and like it's actually time to start moving up, like at that point You'll start to connect those relationships into maybe a sponsorship, or maybe even it starts with you get a little bit of free product from them, which that's, that's what you're gonna start with. That launches into something bigger further down the road. So, like you know, don't worry about All kinds of stuff that, like high school kids shouldn't be worried about, like like trying to get money, like for no reason.
Speaker 1:So universities will provide you with what you need and we're to fish, so go with that. Yeah, and that was. That was all of our pointers, but hopefully that's helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if, like, anybody has any more questions, please like message me, comment, whatever we'd be happy to answer more questions. Yeah, honestly, if we get enough questions about it or whatever, yeah, I Would love to help because I was in the position of I didn't know anything about I didn't know how to go through recruitment.
Speaker 1:As a high school student, I mean, I didn't have. My high school was very new and I didn't have a whole lot of resources or know who to go to on how to go through that process, and I know that you know other sports. It's different. Bass fishing is still coming up, though. I mean, what I did is I made a, a profile on a recruiting website For universities, and so you know is that a lot of contact? Maybe in the future you know bass fishing will have something similar.
Speaker 2:That might already, then they might already.
Speaker 1:I mean we can look into it too. But yeah, I did the whole recruiting process pretty much by myself. But it's very possible.
Speaker 2:So what's hard to know, like what you're looking for, it is and like I would say, like I know this was the case for both of us we're looking at like big schools because that's all you know. Like you know, you don't know the D2, d3, yeah, and I like you know, you don't know any of those colleges, unless you know someone that went there.
Speaker 1:And I was like I'm going to, oh, you, I'm gonna run a, you and I can't pay for, oh you one typically like fishing.
Speaker 2:all the schools that have budgets and that have Big teams they're not D1 schools.
Speaker 1:They're small, yeah, but they're awesome schools, like all the people and all the coaches that we met. That combine jury had about.
Speaker 2:Jury had about 1500 students and it was great having going to a small school went to a small high school.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I mean I didn't really go to a small high school, but you liked being a small school. Yeah, I love jury. I mean, I thought it was awesome over there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh.
Speaker 2:Oh, I was gonna talk about, so the combine price and oh, yeah, so like the the Bass Mester High School combine. It was $600 per angler, which seems like way too much money for me, but it really did pay for itself Because they got included in. The $600 is two nights at the hotel, four meals, one or two reels, I think, maybe one real and even just that by itself something else even that by itself pays for it yeah with having a hundred seventy five dollar real and a couple nights at a nice hotel.
Speaker 2:So that pays for it itself and then plus, you're making the connections and I mean they got some other free stuff.
Speaker 1:You were able to pick the schools you went into talk to. I think each angler got to talk to at least you know what like five.
Speaker 2:Oh, at least five, at least five.
Speaker 1:So that's really cool. That gives you opportunity to talk to five coaches in person.
Speaker 2:We can go up and talk to coaches after our schedule me yeah, it's not there was a couple guys that came up to us and you know, thank us for talking to him and stuff, which is really cool and yeah, but but I, after adding up like what you get with it, it definitely was worth the money and like six hundred bucks if you're looking for the right college, I know to parents that's not a big deal paying that much money Because, like you want to find the right school and that's a good time to meet a lot of coaches, instead of having to email 25 different schools and have conversations with them. Like it was a really good event.
Speaker 2:Like if you want to get in front of coaches and just learn about colleges because you know, like we talked about jury, but I can't speak for other schools, and that's a good time to like learn about what the different programs are like and what they offer yeah, I mean, I can't even imagine if I had that as a you know, junior or senior in high school. Yeah, I mean, I definitely recommend it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's kind of it reminded me of like a career fair, almost you know, but like for schools and. I wish we had that, you know. I don't know if they were doing it career fair yeah well, no, I don't know if they're doing the combine when you were a senior.
Speaker 2:I started was junior thing in high school college.
Speaker 1:So there's our Talk about recruitment.
Speaker 2:That's kind of random spiel about the combine and what we think about recruitment, but I know there's probably a lot more questions to be had but yeah, I think that gives a basic gist of yeah, so hopefully that's helpful.
Speaker 1:Oh, I Didn't introduce where we are.
Speaker 2:Good.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Brandon house. This is our game room. This is one of the rooms in our house and it has a lot of Coles college things in it, but they're cool things.
Speaker 1:We feel like that because they was in your college apartment, unlike this stuff or also wouldn't have it in our house. So we got this couch from Coles. Parents used to be in their game room and there's a matching couch right there and Recliner that planner is like my best friend and there's a big TV in front of us. It's wonderful as our first married couple big purchase, awesome 65 inches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty cool. And then behind us is just a couple of our hats. We have more. There's more in our bedroom. We thought these ones looked cool here. And then above us is our breed-in sign. It was at our wedding and our aunt Jennifer, who is the best, got it for us, and now it hangs in our house all the time. So, oh, and this is called dear.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful.
Speaker 1:What's his name? You have to name them right now. I Bucky. Should we name them bucky?
Speaker 2:bucky.
Speaker 1:I don't like it.
Speaker 2:You want to name that doggy doggy, that's my doggy.
Speaker 1:Come here, come say hi. Everybody you want to say hi. No, he's a good boy. All right, that's bucky. That's our dear bucky. Welcome to our game room. Can't wait to do more episodes and show you guys the rest of our house.
Speaker 2:So if anybody has any questions, like we said, please comment, message me. Whatever, if we need to have another little talk, show about it, that's completely fine, just whatever helps everybody the most.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's it and thank you for listening to the breed-in late night talk show. I am going to bed.